Hi Mike,

When we designed IR+ we incorporated User Research into the requirements and design processes of the system.  

We found that we had a very hard time convincing our users to use our Institutional Repository because it did not seem to meet many of their needs.  So we did two major Anthropological research studies on how our users do their work - one study was on faculty and the other was on Ph. D students.  I have included links to the studies at the bottom of this email if you would like to read them.

What we found were faculty and graduate students were looking for:

 A place where they could see how their work was being used
 An area where they could do their work including collaboration and authoring
 A place to talk about and display their work

In response to these needs we created:

- Contributor pages which summarizes all work by an author in the repository including download counts - we have Name Authority Control so we can bring together all stats for an author who has published under different names or name variations.

- A private workspace where faculty and graduate students can do authoring and collaboration - this includes collaborating with users outside of the university


- Researcher Pages which allows a faculty or graduate student 


So the major change is on top of the traditional storage and dissemination of institutional material we added features that we hope will encourage use and submission into the repository.  So far we have seen very positive results - but we do expect some time for work practices to change and we have just started larger efforts to show off the features of the repository to our faculty and graduate students.
 

I hope this helps to answer your question and if you or anyone else would like me to elaborate on anything please feel free to contact me.


You can see the full results of reports of these studies here:  

http://tinyurl.com/ydwokxo  (Understanding Faculty to Improve Content Recruitment for Institutional Repositories)

http://tinyurl.com/ydvl4dv (The Next Generation of Academics: A Report on a Study Conducted at the University of Rochester)




Best Wishes,
-Nate



Nathan Sarr
Senior Software Engineer
River Campus Libraries
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY  14627
(585) 275-0692


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Beccaria
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 4:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] University of Rochester Releases IR+ Institutional Repository System

Nathan,
Can you summarize how the IR+ software is different than other major
institutional repository software? I'm not directly involved with a
repository and so my understanding of the scope of these products lacks
detail. Where does IR+ fit into the big picture?
Thanks,

Mike Beccaria
Systems Librarian
Head of Digital Initiatives
Paul Smith's College
518.327.6376

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Sarr, Nathan
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 2:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] University of Rochester Releases IR+ Institutional
Repository System

The University of Rochester is pleased to announce the 1.0 production
version of its new open source institutional repository software
platform, IR+.  The University has been running IR+ in production since
August 2009.  
 

The download can be found here:

 

http://code.google.com/p/irplus/downloads/list
<http://code.google.com/p/irplus/downloads/list> 
 
 
The website for the project can be found here:
 
http://www.irplus.org <http://www.irplus.org> 
 
 
IR+ includes the following features:
 
-   Repository Wide Statistics: download counts at the repository
collection and publication level.  The statistics excludes web crawler
results, and includes the ability to retroactively remove previously
unknown crawlers or download counts that should not be included, for
more accurate statistical reporting.
 
-   Researcher Pages, to allow users (faculty, graduate students,
researchers) to highlight their work and post their CV
 

o   Example of a current researcher:
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/viewResearcherPage.action?researcherId=
30
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/viewResearcherPage.action?researcherId
=30> 

 

-   Ability to create "Personal publications" that allows users to have
full control over their work and see download counts without publishing
into the repository.

 

-   An online workspace where users can store files they are working on,
and if needed, share files with colleagues or their thesis advisor. 

 

-          Contributor pages where users can view download counts for
all publications that they are associated with in the repository.

 

o   Example of a contributor page:
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/viewContributorPage.action?personNameId
=20
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/viewContributorPage.action?personNameI
d=20>  

 

-          Faceted Searching (example search for: Graduate Student
Research)

 

o
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/searchRepositoryItems.action?query=Medi
cal+Image
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/searchRepositoryItems.action?query=Med
ical+Image> 

 

-          Embargos (example below embargoed until 2011-01-01)

 

o
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.acti
on?institutionalItemId=8057
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.act
ion?institutionalItemId=8057> 

 

 

-          Name Authority Control (Notice changes in last name)

o
https://urresearch.rochester.edu/viewContributorPage.action?personNameId
=209
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/viewContributorPage.action?personNameI
d=209> 

 

 

 
You can see the IR+ system customized for our university and in action
here: https://urresearch.rochester.edu
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu> 
 
 
A further explanation of highlights can be found on my researcher page
here:
 

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/researcherPublicationView.action?resear
cherPublicationId=11
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/researcherPublicationView.action?resea
rcherPublicationId=11> 

 

The documentation for the system (install/user/administration) with lots
of pictures can be found on my researcher page here:

 

https://urresearch.rochester.edu/researcherPublicationView.action?resear
cherPublicationId=16
<https://urresearch.rochester.edu/researcherPublicationView.action?resea
rcherPublicationId=16> 

 

We would be happy to give you a personal tour of the system and the
features it provides. 

 

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.  

-Nate

 

 

Nathan Sarr

Senior Software Engineer

River Campus Libraries

University of Rochester

Rochester, NY  14627

(585) 275-0692